Mumbai: The Deputy Commissioner Kiran Dighavkar (Solid Waste Management) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced that the BMC will acquire 48 cars on lease for 5 years, which includes 14 cars for the elected representatives, such as the incoming mayor, deputy mayor and chairpersons of various committees.
According to a Hindustan Times report, the 48 vehicles will be acquired on a lease at Rs. 12 crore for five years, wherein the average monthly rent would be Rs. 42,000 per vehicle. Hybrid Innova cars will be given to the incoming mayor and deputy mayor, while Scorpios will be given to the chairpersons of various committees, the leader of the house, the leader of the opposition and BMC officials. These vehicles will arrive about 8 to 10 days before the mayor and other chairpersons are sworn in, Dighavkar added.
"It would be embarrassing if top officials of the BMC do not have good vehicles to travel in" he said to HT. The move was necessary as the vehicles earlier allotted to the mayor and heads of various standing committees are now being used by other officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Dighavkar added "A new lease model is being tried out where the BMC will only pay for the drivers and fuel, while the agency, that leased the cars, will look after the maintainance"
The earlier standing committee of the BMC suggested buying 23 cars for the mayor and the chairpersons for Rs. 3 crores in 2023, but as per the electric vehicle policy backed by then environment minister Aaditya Thackeray, a Tata Nexon was taken in lease for the mayor in 2021.
The BMC had reclaimed the official vehicles of the mayor and various committee chairpersons four years ago after their tenures ended, with the cars, mostly Scorpios, subsequently reassigned to other BMC officials.
Reacting to the proposal to lease 48 vehicles, former mayor and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Kishori Pednekar said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administration should ideally have left such decisions to the newly elected representatives.
Pednekar said "This could be a parting decision as the administration has been taking all the decisions on their own for the last five years"
Pednekar added that while a few committee chairpersons had earlier been provided leased vehicles, mayors had never been allotted cars on lease.
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